Glasses on iPhone 11 ProSource: iMore

What you need to know

  • Apple's AR executives have sat down for an interview with CNET.
  • They talked about the AR transformation of iPhone and iPad, as well as uses for the future.

Apple's AR executives have spoken to CNET in an exclusive interview about the power of AR.

From the piece:

...But Apple's AR mission right now, according to Mike Rockwell, Apple's head of AR, and Allessandra McGinnis, its senior product manager for AR, is to make everything work better on the device you already have in your pocket. Layering AR with real-world locations and popping up experiences automatically, while making creative tools and developing assistive tech based on AR's capabilities, could, in the long run, become the biggest killer apps.

Rockwell told CNET that AR had "enormous potential" to help people in their lives using devices today, but also "devices that may exist tomorrow." The pair also noted how it was more important for Apple to focus on enabling AR on iPhone and iPad, devices that have hundreds of millions of users than it was to focus on AR-only experiences.

Talking about the LiDAR scanner, Rockwell said that the new technology opened up the possibility to scan environments, and would make it easier to create 3D objects, describing it as a "key technology that could open up an explosion of 3D assets."

Rockwell also talked about how the future of iPhone augmented reality was not apps, but quick glance moments, a development made real by Apple's new App Clips in iOS 14.

In conclusion, Rockwell stated that AR in a few years would be "one of those things where you kind of can't remember living without it."

You can read the report in full here.